


Snapshots

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-17
Updated: 2007-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-10 18:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roy tries to cope with the aftermath of everything that happened to <b>his</b> team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshots

**Author's Note:**

> Aftermath of the Lightning Saga and the previous Crisis

He was still with Wally, laughing and joking, watching the two kids and Linda. When his phone rang, and he saw it was Donna's number, he smirked.

"Looks like Wonder Chick knows already, Fleetfeet," Roy joked, before flipping the phone open. "Hey babe," he said, his voice cheerful and light, buoyed by the return of a Titan, of one of his first true friends.

"Roy..." Donna's voice was choked, harsh with tears and anguish.

"Donna?!" He moved away from the family, to listen to her, to find out how, when one of theirs was back, she could possibly be hurting so much.

"Roy... it's Bart... they just found... Roy, they murdered our Imp."

Roy couldn't quite hear anything else as Donna told him the details. All he could think was that Bart Allen, the speedster that had faced challenges through thick and thin with him, been his Impulse long before Young Justice came into existence, was dead, and he hadn't even known he was in danger.

`~`~`~`~`

He hadn't been able to go to the funeral. It wasn't his way. The customs he had been raised with did not get along well with the massive events that burying a hero turned into. If there was ever anyone that had no evil to leave a chindi, it was their bright speedster, but even so...

Dinah had gone.

So had the Titans, past and present.

He sat home alone, his little girl out with Omar so his mood did not upset her. She had known Impulse too. Had liked the way he could always cheer her up, had loved being raced through their headquarters ("zip, Imp, zipzip!") when Sarge Steel hadn't been around.

The photo album in his lap should have been one of his proudest achievements. His team. The Titans. They'd faced Vandal Savage, Deathstroke, countless other threats and kept coming through.

Donna. Miri. Tara. Bart. Grant. Kyle. Linda. Rose. Jarras.

Roy took a ragged breath as he looked over the snapshots. Losing Bart had kicked him hard, and looking back over these memories... all he could see was his failure to them all.

He could see the pattern of failure so clearly in the light of Bart's murder. When he let the team slip away, when he disbanded the team, he had been as guilty as Dick in the aftermath of Donna's death. That was not how the Titans were supposed to be. The Titans were a team, yes, but first, they were a family.

Roy had forgotten that long before Dick had turned his back on them.

How often had he checked in on them? Had he called just to see how they were doing, or if they wanted to catch up on things? (Not enough). 

He had to think on the gap between Lian and Julienne just to remember how old Miri's baby should be by now... when he was one of the few that knew what it was like with a little kid underfoot.

Those things were just the beginning of how he had failed.

Rumor had it that Kyle was somewhere out in space, possessed by Parallax, just like Hal had been. Or had Kyle embraced it, looking for that power that Hal had thought he had needed? What had happened that had made the artist go so mad? Kyle, the only Lantern Roy'd ever been able to accept in Hal's sector, the one that had done so much to bring Hal back from that, back when... What could have made him turn?

God only knew where Jarras was, if he'd come through the Crisis safe or it he'd been caught in one of the battles and lost... 

Why hadn't he gone to help hunt Deathstroke when he took Rose's sanity from her, and hurt Imp at the same time? No matter what was going on, how had he turned his back on the girl who had protected his baby so many times?

His unsteady breathing gave way to full-throated sobs when he came to a picture of him and Grant, arms slung around each other's shoulders. 

Grant might not have been the youngest of his team, but Grant had been his kid in a way that no one else approached. He had taken Grant under his wing, helped him with his powers, helped him cope with his past. He had taken Grant home to the reservation even, hoping it would comfort him. He could still see him struggling to contain a full-power blast from that damn staff--a killing shot Grant'd taken without a thought, to protect him ("This one's mine, chief!")--hear the rage and the pain at all of his losses in Grant's voice every time something had brought a memory back... He'd managed to be there then. 

But now? From what he knew (from other people and rumors, when he should have been there!) Grant was a bitter man, lost in the grief and pain of the past two years, (so damn far from the bold, brazen Damage he'd seen and been so proud of when the kids and adults ages had been swapped) and the loss of all support from the ones who should have been there. Like he should have been. 

Roy realized he had been no better than Ollie, giving Grant someone to lean on, and then walking away so abruptly. How the hell had he just... left him? 

He looked at the costume he now wore, looked at the framed invitation to the League, and felt only shame.

When they had first asked him, he had not felt worthy.

Now, he knew he wasn't.


End file.
